Ebook: The Great Demographic Illusion: Majority, Minority, and the Expanding American Mainstream

Why the number of young Americans with ethno-racially mixed backgrounds is surging and what this means for the country’s future

Americans are under the spell of a distorted and polarizing story about their country’s future—the majority-minority narrative—which contends that inevitable demographic changes will create a society with a majority made up of minorities for the first time in American history. The Great Demographic Illusion reveals the flaws in this narrative and how it obscures a more transformative development: the rising numbers of young Americans from ethno-racially mixed families, consisting of one white and one nonwhite parent. Examining the unprecedented significance of mixed parentage in the twenty-first-century United States, Richard Alba looks at how young Americans with this background will play pivotal roles in the country’s demographic future.

Assembling a vast body of evidence, Alba explores where these mixed families fit in American society. Most participate in the mainstream, as seen in their high levels of integration into social milieus with whites and frequent marriage with them. Yet, racism is also evident in the very different experiences of individuals with black-white heritage. Alba’s portrait squares in key ways with the history of American immigrant-group assimilation, and indicates that, once again, mainstream American society is expanding and becoming more inclusive. He discusses social policies that might enhance mainstream assimilation and argues that the future is more likely to resemble a gradual evolution from the present rather than a stark overturning of an established order.

An outlook on social change that counters more rigid demographic beliefs and predictions, The Great Demographic Illusion offers a new way of understanding American society and its coming transformation.